Sister Act: The Nuns On The Bus Come Home To D.C.

In front of the United Methodist Building, a tall Italian Renaissance edifice next to the Supreme Court, fans of the Catholic nuns protesting Paul Ryan’s budget are crouched under shady trees coloring in the bubble letters on their handmade signs. The nuns have just completed a nine state bus tour across the Midwest, visiting schools and charities that could be affected by cuts in the House passed budget, and the signs are meant to welcome them home.

Just last week the sidewalks around the court were so packed that health care law supporters and agonistes had to walk in the street. This will be a slow week in Washington, with Congress is in recess, the cognoscenti and their hangers on in Aspen and everyone else fleeing for the Fourth of July, but there’s still a crowd here who thinks the nuns deserve support. Their bus tour coincided with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ "Fortnight for Freedom," a series of events meant in part to protest the health care law’s requirement that religious affiliated organizations have birth control as a part of their health care plans, and just two months after the Vatican released a report trashing a group of American nuns for their "radical feminist" views—including their critical support of the health care overhaul.

"The sisters are everything that is good with the church, so it’s amazing that the hierarchy is choosing to attack them," says a ponytailed man helping finish a "We Love You Sisters" poster. "They are the backbone and the rock of the church. The bishops are in a bad state of affairs right now."

So the small but intense assembly of supporters is singing the old gospel "Down by the Riverside," with an alternate verse: "The nuns on the bus speak for us/Down by the riverside." Seventy-five Democratic lawmakers, back home in their districts but grateful to have a religious group backing them up, recorded a video thanking the nuns for their efforts. "The nuns on the bus speak for not just Catholics, not for Christians only, not for Jews, they speak for all of us," Dr. Sayyid Sayeed, the national director of the Islamic Society of North America, tells the crowd.

There is a short prayer, and finally the giant blue bus, decorated with the faces of smiling children, rolls around the corner onto First Street. "Eye of the Tiger," kicks in on the sound system. Someone behind me shouts "Nuns! Nuns nuns nuns! Nuns nuns nuns!" to the beat. And they keep screaming and cheering, as the bus slowly rolls to a stop and, even more slowly, the six older ladies make it across the street and onto the stage, smiling and waving in button down blouses and skirts and sensible slacks.

The women tell stories of meeting poor fathers, inspirational children, a woman who emptied her wallet for them as she was walking into a Target. Sister Simone Campbell, the ecutive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, introduces the oldest nun, Diane Donoghue, a small woman in a gingham skirt suit. "I’m 81 years old and I’m still going! That’s what it means when you’re committed." The audience goes crazy for her. When they quiet, she says, "I’m not going to stand here and say the Ryan budget is moral. It’s immoral!"

Sister Campbell takes the podium back and makes the Catholic case against the Ryan budget. "The federal budget as passed by the House currently rejects church teaching about solidarity, inequality, choice for the poor and the common good," she says.

"Sing it!" someone shouts.

"Oh you want to hear it again?" she says. "Alright!"

"Faced with a staggering economy and an economy that is creating too few jobs and stagnant wages, politicians like Congressman Ryan say programs like food stamps—food stamps!—create dependency and complacency instead of preventing hunger. Food stamps create not complacency, but opportunity," she says. She asks the audience to help them in the protest.

When she finishes, Jackie Wilson’s "(Your love Keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher" blares through the speakers. I grab Sister Mary Ellen Lacy, one of the nuns on the bus, and ask her what she thought they’d accomplished on the tour. "Our concern isn’t so much that that particular budget will pass, but when they do pass one they’ll look back and say, look at what we’ve already accepted. And that can’t be the starting point. Too much was stripped," she says. I ask if she got to meet any Republican Congressmen. "We went to a lot of districts and nobody—we met a lot of their staff."

So they didn’t get much face time with the Republicans who voted for the budget. But for a few hours yesterday, they were greeted in Washington as heroes. As the nuns make their way through the crowd, women hug them and thank them for their efforts. One cameraman, running past me, shouts, "This is like a rock concert!"

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